RIO DE JANEIRO The interim president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) is among six people who had their passports seized by Brazilian police in an operation on Sunday against the illegal resale of tickets to the Rio Games, a police source said.
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The three will be questioned on Tuesday as part of an investigation into a scheme to resell Games tickets at inflated prices.
Pat Hickey was taken to Bangu Prison on the western outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on Friday afternoon following his dramatic arrest on Wednesday afternoon.
“Early this morning in Rio, Brazilian police arrived at the OCI offices in the Olympic village and at OCI accommodation outside of the village”, read a statement from the Olympic Council of Ireland this evening.
The 71-year-old is now in custody at Brazil’s largest prison Bangu, on the outskirts of the city that is playing host to the 2016 ‘Games.
European Olympic head Patrick Hickey of Ireland has been transferred to a prison in the closing days of the Rio Games while under investigation in a ticket-scalping scandal, authorities said Friday.
He is now in the Bangu maximum security prison in Rio.
After he was discharged from hospital he was refused bail and transferred to Bangu Prison where he now being held in custody. Bach again stressed the “presumption of innocence” in Hickey’s case.
The board of the OCI added that it was taking the recent events “very seriously” and said that supporting the current Irish athletes and teams in Brazil was “a top priority”.
The IOC’s commission “is actually in contact with the authorities in Brazil”.
Now, he is sharing a prison cell with Kevin Mallon, a director of THG, the global sports hospitality company caught up in the investigation, say prison authorities.
The 71-year-old, frightened by the raid according to a police chief, was first taken to Samaritano hospital after complaining of chest pain.
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Some Irish tickets for the Olympics’ opening ceremony with a face value of $1,400 were sold for $8,000, police said.
